Coursera doubles university count to 33, now hosts over 200 courses for over 1.3 million students

Coursera today announced 17 new universities have signed agreements with the education technology company to bring courses online for free, in the areas of music, medicine, humanities, and so on. The addition more than doubles the service’s total count of supported schools. Coursera now hosts more than 200 courses from 33 universities, reaching over 1.3 million students across the globe.

Coursera launched in April, and it quickly hit the 1 million student milestone just four months later. Since its debut, Coursera says it has “accelerated toward its mission to educate millions worldwide, building meaningful community engagement systems, and establishing advanced technologies to support learning online.”

That might seem like PR spin, but Coursera does offer more than just lectures, including in-person Meetups across almost 1,000 cities around the world, thousands of community forums, as well as professor and student-organized networking. For students, the benefits are obvious, but even professors have something to gain as they share their knowledge with larger audiences: exploring new teaching methods in the classroom and gathering valuable feedback from a broader range of students.

“We set out to make education accessible to everyone around the world, and seeing our vision come to life has been an incredible experience,” Coursera CEO Daphne Koller said in a statement. “With the addition of the exceptional, forward thinking institutions coming on board today, we’re proud to offer an even more diverse experience to our students.”

So, what’s next? Coursera wouldn’t specify, but the company is of course planning new courses over the coming months, and I would assume new universities will be added as well.